God Cannot Love Me Less

When my daughter does something that she knows she should not have done, she always cries and asks me if I still love her.  It is human nature for us to feel unlovable when we sin.  Because of my upbringing, I have always had to fight the mind-set of equating God’s love with my actions. In the back of my mind, I always feel that if I am "good", then God will love me more. On the other hand, when I am bad, which seems to happen with great regularity, then I feel unlovable. I grew up in a very legalistic denomination and there were so many rules that I couldn’t begin to name them. I knew what was acceptable and unacceptable, but it was an unwritten list. I will always be shaped by my earlier experiences, but there are some habits I have had to break. I do not believe that I am saved based on my actions, but for some reason I still fight the feeling that God will somehow love me less if I mess up.

This week in class we studied 1 Samuel 12. The children of Israel wanted to be like all the other nations and have a King, and despite the many warnings that Samuel gave them against this, they kept demanding a King; therefore, God delivered to them their desire. In 1 Samuel 12, Samuel is telling the children of Israel how God has always taken care of them and it is made abundantly clear to them that they have turned away from their God, they have sinned, and they began to be fearful and to feel unloved. In verse 20 Samuel says "Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil, Yet do not turn aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. For the LORD will not forsake his people.. . ." To me the word forsake means to leave, and the dictionary defines it as "to quit, leave entirely, or abandon." The Hebrew word in this passage actually has a slightly different definition. It means to beat a mass until it is flat or to devalue something. For some reason this clicked with me.  I realized God does not love me less because of my sin. I do not lose value in His sight because of my screw-ups. I have always said that I disappoint God, but He still loves me. I now am beginning to wonder, "Can God be disappointed when He knew I was going to mess up anyway?" God loves me. There is nothing else I can add to that. It makes no sense in my finite human mind. I can’t understand it or fathom how massive His love is. I just know that God loves me with all of His being, and He cannot love me any less!

The Most Important Question

Yesterday, I made a comment to a client which triggered him to share his testimony with me. It resonated with me, because I felt God calling me to witness--to actually speak up and ask someone "Do you know Jesus?" This client said that he was living a very rough life and one day he and the guys he worked with went to a restaurant. He noticed there were some beautiful girls working in this restaurant and he was able to obtain the number of one of them. He was very excited and he called her the next day and the very first question she asked him was, "Are you saved?" He, having no religious experience, totally misunderstood and thought she was worried about him being a safe person to be with.  He quickly assured her that he was safe and assured her of his good intentions. She said, "No, no! You misunderstood.  Are you saved? If you aren't saved then you are lost." He again glossed over the question assuring her that he was a really good guy. She hung up on him. Although, he said from that point he was tormented over her question and what she really meant. It was the beginning of his search for spiritual meaning and his search for God.  He never heard from this girl again, and she doesn't know that she asked him the most important question he ever heard.  

I have felt God tugging at my heart these last months about witnessing. I have lost the vision and the burden for the lost that I once had. Where I once had a burden to help needy and hurting people, it has now become a burden to help needy and hurting people. My husband is a Gideon--one of those men that hands out Bibles. I am in the Auxiliary and I carry a KJV New Testament and a Spanish language New Testament in my purse at all times. I have given out a handful of Bibles in my membership, but not near enough. I pass untold numbers of people everyday who need Jesus. They sit in the very place I work and I never think to ask them "Are you saved?" Last week at church camp I felt God renew my strength and renew my burden. My heart was softened, and it seemed like I couldn't quit crying. Today I prayed, "God send someone to me to witness to today", and tonight I sat thinking "God didn't send me anyone." Then like a lightening bolt he reminded me of the boy that was in my office with his father.  This young man is headed down the wrong road right now, and all I did was take care of the administrative work that needed completing. I forgot to witness. 

I am always waiting for someone else to start the conversation, and so many times I realize that they are waiting for me to tell them why I have hope. They want me to tell them why I am so happy with the life I live. It may be that they don't even know they are lost. I am praying that God will quicken my spirit when that person I need to witness to comes into my presence.  A preacher, that I have a lot of respect for said, "We can't change the world, but Jesus can."  The world has drifted farther and farther from God, and we worry about the political and social ills of our society.  I have heard people bemoan how Christians just want to tell you about Jesus and not take care of their earthly needs of food and shelter. I believe that until we do take care of their earthly needs they won't hear the message, but be careful that we don't spend our time feeding the poor and never telling them they need Jesus more. They may need clean drinking water, but more than that they need the water Jesus gives that they will never thirst again.  The only way our society will change is if we start introducing them to Jesus and then ".......do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. (1 Samuel 10:7 ESV)

Laughter Toxicity

I love to laugh; it is better than chocolate in my opinion. In college, I wrote a research paper on laughter and discovered that laughter has been proven to actually work like a medicine.  At the time I wrote my paper, there were laughter clubs in India.  They got together in the park, much like exercise groups would, and they laughed.  They tried to tell jokes in the beginning, but they ran out and discovered that you can make yourself laugh and it works just as well.  I am currently in the process of updating my research, and I see that there is now laughter yoga. The goal of http://www.laughteryoga.org is to bring "good health, joy, and WORLD PEACE through laughter".  Laughter knows no language barriers. 

The last three years have been stressful years, and I started this year with the goal of laughing more. I tried to incorporate things in my life that would make me laugh because I know that laughter releases the bad stress from your body. It just seems like life continued to distract me from laughing. Apparently the average four year old laughs about 300 times a day and the average 40 year old laughs only four according to Psychology Today. These statistics differ depending on what authority you are reading, but they all agree that children laugh vastly more than adults. I do believe I am above average in the laughing department, but I do allow the stress of my life to dictate how much I laugh. 

This past week I went to church camp. When you go to church camp, you always expect to get spiritually pumped up, and I did. I didn't expect to develop "laughter toxicity!" I was sitting around talking with some friends and one of my friends was telling the story of how a poor little girl was stuck in the bathroom stall with no TP. She kept hollering and begging for some TP and nobody would pay attention. I had walked in about this time and finally my friend was handing her a roll of TP over the stall and I noticed it was the wet roll. The thought then went through my mind "Oh no, that is the wet roll.  Why did I not throw that away? I have picked it up and put it back down about ten times. Did I think it was gonna dry out?" Then the little girl cries out plaintively "This TP is wet!"  For some reason this story struck me as hilarious. I was trying to tell my side of the story and I got so tickled that I laughed harder than I have laughed in ages. I lost my breath, I cried, and just could not stop. Everyone was amazed. They hadn't seen me laugh like that and teasingly wondered if I was drunk.  I did eat a Rainbow Pop right before, and it may have gotten blamed for it. In fact, the Rainbow Pop sales shot up after that. It felt so good to laugh, and I still felt the effects of it the next day. I am actively trying to make myself laugh, even if there is nothing funny. Who says you need funny stuff to make you laugh. Just smile and fake a good belly laugh, and you will probably start laughing for real.  I promise you, that if you ever laugh so hard you cry, you will feel better than drunk and the hangover will be glorious. 

Here's the link to my research paper on Laughter
Laughter: Is it Healthy?
http://home.hiwaay.net/~garson/laughter.htm